May 13, 2010

Written by

Ben Jones

Post-Crescent Madison bureau chief

MADISON — Most people requesting records from Gov. Jim Doyle's office last year did not have to wait long to get them.

The Post-Crescent's fifth annual review of public records requests found that about two-thirds of people seeking records got them within two weeks. That's a marked improvement from 2007, when about half of people got their records that quickly, or 2006, when just 16 percent of requestors received records in two weeks.

"(Doyle) believes government functions best when it's open and people get the information that they need," Doyle spokesman Lee Sensenbrenner said.

Despite the improvement, Sensenbrenner said the effort by the governor's office to respond to records requests hasn't really changed. He said it's difficult to compare the turnaround time of public records requests from year to year.

"(Timing) does depend, to a large extent, on the requests themselves," Sensenbrenner said.

"It's tough to compare one year versus the next sometimes because the requests can be different. Fulfilling one request sometimes can be very easy and sometimes it just requires a lot more searching and work to get the information."

The P-C requested all written public records requests received by Doyle's office and the officials' responses to determine how quickly people received records. The review did not include verbal open records requests for which there is no paper trail.

The P-C could discern a response time for 65 requests. Of these requests, 43 received requests within two weeks, and 59 requestors, more than 90 percent, received request within about a month.

"We treat every open records request as important and work to fulfill our duties under the law," Sensenbrenner said.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a group that advocates open government, said "it's obviously a good thing" that Doyle's office is responding to requests more promptly.

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"The governor needs to set an example for the rest of the state on this issue," Lueders said. "The open records law is explicit in saying that responding to records requests is a primary function of public officials. It's one of the things they need to take as a primary responsibility."

Doyle's office received a range of requests, including phone records, judicial appointment records, and pardon records.

In most cases, people received what they asked for.

An inmate at the Fox Lake Correctional Institution sent a 12-page handwritten letter seeking documents related to his extradition from Alabama.

The inmate, Johnnie Earl Snell Sr., received a one-sentence response. His records request was granted.

In some cases, Doyle's office told requesters that records did not exist or they asked requesters to narrow their requests.

But everyone got some response, including a Waukesha man who, in an e-mail message, called the governor a "piece of s---."

The e-mail message, which referenced Doyle's cell phone, was apparently not an open records request, but the office checked anyway, to make sure.

One requester who ultimately did not receive records was Jo Egelhoff, a former Appleton alderwoman who runs the blog FoxPolitics.

Egelhoff participated in a Sunshine Blogger Project. On March 13 she requested two days worth of e-mail messages sent and received by Doyle's office, a request reduced in scope from an earlier request Egelhoff made seeking four days of e-mail messages.

On May 29, about 2½ months after Egelhoff's March 13 request, Doyle's office again responded to Egelhoff, suggesting she narrow her request further.

The office said Egelhoff's request would cover more than 80 people and about 4,500 e-mail messages. The state estimated it would take 80 hours to retrieve the e-mail messages and put them on the disk.

Egelhoff questioned the estimate, and the response.

"I think they inaccurately worked hard to try to find ways to avoid responding to my request," she said.

Lueders said generally it's a good response for public officials to work with the requester rather than reject it outright.

"If they feel the request is too broad they should try to work it out," he said.

Sensenbrenner said he was not familiar with the specific details of Egelhoff's request, but he said there can be a lot of labor involved with providing e-mail messages for many people.

Egelhoff said she did not continue to pursue the records, as it would have been a distraction from her campaign for the state Assembly. Running as a Republican, she lost to Democrat Peggy Bernard Schaber of Appleton.